browsing the letter e

Each year in my school had 4 teams for games like rugby: A, B, C and D in descending order of competence. Because my year had slightly more pupils than normal, a fifth team was created, imaginatively called E. I had the good fortune to be a member of this team, which we proudly renamed the E Team Dropouts. We were comprised of the fattest, laziest and most asthmatic kids in the year, and spent most of the time sitting around on the grass watching the other teams exhaust themselves.

Ever Lasting Protection, against the lurgy, cooties, fleas, etcetera. Administered with an invisible can of flea spray over the affected area of the body. Must be accompanied by a hissing sound - otherwise your pressurised can obviously isn't working, and no protection will be afforded. Can also be used on chairs and desks which are suspected of having been sat at by anyone incontinent, smelly or simply unpopular.

Advice given to pupils complaining about sun in their eyes, by English teacher Mr Roddy Thompson. Half-plausible until you realise that 1) eagles don't stare at the sun and 2) you'd go blind.

A phrase reserved for popular kids; short for excellent. They possibly didn't realise what pretentious upper-class pricks this one word made them sound like.

Oft used phrase in Longman's Audio-Visual French course, and the only words of French that 50% of our class learned thanks to Mrs Talbot's habit of wearing tight white tops.

This was the rather arbitrary name given to new boy Edward Coyde, in year 5, for no reason other than the quickfire cruelty of Mark Birch. The name never caught on, and boy was reduced to tears, but as a happy upshot Mark and Edward quickly became friends. I read in the paper recently that Birch had died in a car crash, whilst being driven by... Edward Coyde, who survived.

Version of telling, or arrrrrrrr. The main group of people would shout "ee-a, ee-a" for around three minutes, circling the offender, and one person would go for the teacher. Presumably we were a fleet of police cars, which is something of a disproportionate civil response to someone doing a smelly trump.

Quite simply the rudest phrase that can be uttered by a six year old Scottish child.

Apparently a toley is a willy, and hen's keech is chicken poo. No further translation is provided.

A north eastern variation of arrrrrrrrrrrrr and ummmmmmmmmmm.

One of the many synonyms for 'twat'. After a while, the regular insult exchange evolved into:
Kid A: You're an eef!
Kid B: Eef what?
Kids A+B (singing): Eef I was a rich man...
They would then continue to sing any of the rest of the words if they could a) remember them, and b} be bothered.

The variant 'eenie meenie minee mo, catch a nigger by the toe', taught to me by the school's only black kid, should not be used in front of parents. Or in Clark's, no matter how hard it is to decide which shoes you want.

The ruthless teasing of short-fused ginger kid David Tyers was a highly rewarding pastime due to his tendency to fly into apoplectic rages and lose the ability to think clearly. His insulting yet mystifying outbursts reaching their high water mark with the frothy-mouthed ejaculation, "You egg dribble!" Damned by his own mouth, this was adopted as the weapon of choice for inflicting further suffering on poor Tyers.

A group of boys rounding up a group of girls on a school trip. The girls sit on a table in the boys room, and the boys proceed to circle round the table rubbing their imaginary breasts, all the time repeating, again and again, "Eggie Eggie Sa Sa". After some time the girls would become quite scared and start running around, screaming. Teachers rarely interrupted this process, perhaps scared to dabble in that which they didn't understand.

Make a fist on someone's head, tap it down with your other hand, and slowly drag both hands down the scalp. This experience is exactly the same as having an egg gently tapped on your head, as those of us from loving egg-tapping families will know.

The term to describe the fart of a father.

As in "who just waved an eggy banner?" A fart.

If someone is naturally inclined to violent rages, then simply shouting "eggy doyler" at them, again and again, often allows you to push them over the edge without having to think too hard.

A particularly obnoxious fart that moves throughout the room, causing as much panic as a bubbling puddle of liquid AIDS.

Thank you to the anonymous user who reminded us that, yes, girls did used to play with elastic. Metres-long bits of clothing elastic, for strange jumping/falling-over purposes. The ritual began with putting the elastic around the ankles, and from thereon things got dark and scary. Songs were involved.

With a friend, find a child smaller than you who has gloves on elastic through his coat. Proceed to stretch elastic to the point where the whole playground is literally 'divided' by the elastic, with the small child helpless in the middle. Letting go is also a pleasure.

During a GCSE Science lesson we devised a test of endurance.. First you need around 15-20 paper clips and a 12volt power source (although we did make a 9v portable version, it had a very limited battery life). Next string the paper clips together and attach them like a beard - over your chin with the ends of the chain coming down behind your ears. Now attach the power source - the winner, naturally, is the one who can withstand the agony for longest.

Geography supply teacher Mr Mitchell noticed a switch by the white board. On asking us what the switch was for, we told him that it flipped the board over to reveal a clean writing surface. He then proceeded to flick the switch many times, with no resulting magical board reversal. Exclaiming that it was clearly broken, he remained utterly oblivious to the fact that the lights were constantly going on and off.

When mouthed to someone, the lip-reading recipient will interpret this as "I love you". On their begging your pardon, you could then reply, "I said elephant juice, dummy."

This was briefly popular at our school until Steven Richardson blurted out "I love you!" to Andy Scott, missing the point entirely, but confirming what we already knew.

The fat bloke out of Brush Strokes, therefore any fat person in any class in any school, from 1986-88. In particular, Andrew Barlow. Andrew delivered swift and heavy justice to people who called him Elmo. He was the tallest boy in the year, and so was in the most commanding position to deliver a painful bundy. The fat bloke was also in Chelmsford 123, with a similarly stupid fat sounding name. This caught on for a brief while, but appalling as Brush Strokes was, it was better than fucking Chelmsford 123.

Anyone who kicked Cheesy, stole his bag or merely expressed a different opinion to him in polite conversation instantly became his emeny, and he'd waste no time telling them as much. I suspect he'd have had less emenies if he hadn't insisted on using a bastardisation of the English language generally reserved for children 10-12 years younger.

A deeply regrettable insult on the part of the inventor. Referring to the eczema of his opponent, and the emery board like complexion of his epidermis, the insult just sort of hung there for a few seconds before the cries of "emery what?" and "say that again, you fucking ponce" let him know that he had lost the argument.

In an attempt to make the Encore Tricolore text book more appealing to students, a photo-biography of "Mission:Impossible" star Emmanuelle Béard was included. Despite the misleading name, Emmanuelle Béard had no beard. This matter was swiftly rectified.

The cry i was greeted with every morning on entering the common room. By everyone. Eventually I learned to accept it. They even sang 'Happy Birthday' to me once. It wasn't my birthday.

Let's have the 'Special Studies' class - who don't do much in the way of work anyway - spend a day experiencing what it would be like to be disabled.
An admirable idea irrevocably marred when Tim Ives dropped several valiums and some acid. If you can imagine Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with the whole cast in wheelchairs, wearing Dreamscape bomber jackets, you're starting to get the picture.

Leathering of the anus, due to excess buggery.

The rudest thing you can say in french without using your imagination. Translated, it means "go fuck yourself", and is the closest that French has to offer to the great British "fuck".
Simply by learning a few more basic words - including dog, mother, suck, tetraplegic, vodka and full anal - you can do much better.

Having watched Clive James eyelessly present clips from the crazed Japanese game show "Endurance", we attempted to create our own test of strength, bravery and stamina... by seeing who could sit for the longest on a hot radiator.

In reality this bore less of a resemblance to a madcap slapstick TV show and more a bizarre ritual by an oriental death cult as wave after wave of young boys chose to voluntarily sterilize themselves.

Epididydoo was a cartoon friendly dinosaurus. The most notable thing about Epididydoo the Friendly Dinosaurus was the fact that his name was plainly based on the epididymis. Epididydoo's adventures were entirely unrelated to the spermatic duct system, however. They were shit.

One of a set of winged male reproductive organs, including the amazing flying testicle, the amazing flying prostate gland and the amazing flying vas deferens, all drawn by me during an engineering drawing lesson. I got an 'A' for biology, and a detention for engineering drawing.

Sufferers of epileprosy are struck by violent fits, which cause various body parts to fly off into people's soup.
Reported cases are limited, but it's still funny more than 5 years on.

Abbreviation of epilectic fit. Usage; "Jesus, don't have an eppie - it's just a bit of blood and some visible bone". A common variation is the school bag swinging eppie fit, where no-one gets near and the eppie fitter is probably crying snot.

The process of having to say "gee burt" or "neeyow, ernie" to work out which Sesame Street character was which. Thought process; "I’m saying Gee Burt, so I must be Ernie… it’s the cuter orange one who says Gee Burt, so Ernie’s the banana one. No – hang on – Burt’s the banana."
Settled once and for all with the memory jogging alliteration of Bert the Banana, Ernie the Orange.

Another noise you can make when somebody does something exceptionally stupid. For instance, after you fox a victim with the classic trick multiplication "What is one times one?", and they answer "two".

The response of the BBC Model B to any statement that didn't follow its unjustifiably strict rules of BASIC. Made for limited fun, so.
> chris is great and everyone likes him
ERROR

The cry from Gavin Byrne's younger brother after 'special needs' Emma dropped her knickers.

The Ethiopian famine of the mid 80's gave rise to some particularly horrible jokes. I can't remember them all but a couple stick in my mind: "Did you hear about the nuclear explosion in Ethiopia? - Two million people died trying to eat the mushroom" was one. Another involved pointing at a barcode and asking "what's that?" Most people guessed incorrectly at a barcode, the answer was of course "An Ethiopian family portrait". People even put an Ethiopian slant on mum cussing, ie: "Your mum's fanny is drier than Ethiopia" or just "Your mum's an Ethiopian".

Mnemonic that would help you remember the notes of the treble clef. You could also go with Every Girls Breasts Deserve Fucking, if you were a proper lad who didn't want to think about gays and fudge.

The gaps between the lines of the stave, going upwards, spelled out face. Fuck A Chinaman's Ear never really took off, because the word FACE doesn't really need a mnemonic.

If you ever needed to learn the notes of the Alto Clef, you were probably a bit too into music to be childish about clefs. Which is a shame, because it looks like a big arse.

There was a series of Wally games on the Commodore 64. On the back of one of the games, they actually had the gall to record a novelty song called "Everyone's a Wally". Anyone remember the words?

"Bang, bang. You're dead"
"No, I've got a bulletproof shield"
"But I shot you with nukerler missiles"
"It's a nuclear-proof shield too"
"Ok, Zap, zap. You're dead"
"It's got laser-proof too. It's an everything-proof shield."
"Ok. I get my everything-proof-shield-piercing-bullets and shoot you"

(See also Infinity Plus One)

In Florida, there were always Turkey Vultures that flew, high in the sky. For our neighborhood gang of 5 year olds, there was only one solution to this menace - we formed the Evil Eagle Patrol.
We were armed with plastic bats (which were very real, but not very impressive) and ray guns (vice versa).
And you know Short Circuit, when the authorities are searching the desert for Johnny Five? Well, we'd box the chords from that, too. 'Cos we were ace.

Rupert Baynham spent an entire month when he should have been studying for A-Levels making an Evil Edna costume for the school Halloween party. The costume was not for himself however, but for the mildly retarded girl Helena who he tortured at any given opportunity. The genius of the design (and hence the man hours required) lay in the "hidden compartments" later to be filled with Camembert cheese (only the finest would suffice). The cheese was left to "mature" on school radiators and the costume was gratefully received by the girl thinking it a peace offering from Rupert. One extra feature were ropes inside, ostensibly to "help keep the costume on" but in reality to bind Helena fast inside the costume, preventing escape and causing hideous rope burn. Time well spent.

What you must shout immediatly after you have been tagged in a game of "it", to indicate that your being tagged was invalid, as you had CLEARLY crossed your fingers, thus exempting yourself from being caught because you were tying your shoelace.
In reality, a tactic to ensure that Anne-Marie remains "it" for the duration of playtime, despite the number of people she tags. Poor Anne-Marie.

If a member of your group has been excluded, perhaps for not laughing at the leader's jokes, a lackey may be deployed to further your exclusion This lackey will approach, pretending to comfort for just a few moments, until a reluctant smile plays hopefully onto your lips. Then they will say 'He was right, you ARE a pussy' (or something to that effect), then run back to the group laughing. IMPORTANT NOTE : On no account should you use your time in the wilderness to gain an empathy with the people you would normarily bully.

On the windows of the buses of Isle of Man Transport there used to be clear stickers with red letters warning "THE EXECUTIVE WILL PRESS FOR HIGHEST PENALTIES AGAINST OFFENDERS". With the aid of a 10p piece, it was easy to amend this to "THE EXECUTIVE WILL PRESS HIS PENIS AGAINST OFFENDERS". Quite often, it was noted that the executive (whoever he was) had something of a penchant for pressing his penis against fenders, too. Practically every bus on the island carried these modified warnings at some point during the 80s. They don't any more. Pity.

The cry of exmoor was used to infuriate a fat bloke called McRedie. It referred to an incident at primary school where he was violated using a lubricant solution of deodorant and shaving foam by 5 people. People from Gloucestershire do weird things on holiday.

Yelled as a preface to fourteen 11-year-old boys wrestling a passer-by to the floor, and stuffing their mouth full of grass. Presumably, because it was an experiment, teachers were loath to interfere, in case they rendered the results useless.

The practice of using a black fineline pen to give the players on Panini football stickers giant afros. Each afro should be bigger than the previous one - students may use an extra sheet of paper if necessary. It is only polite to shout "EXTENDER HEAD!" when you are drawing.

When playing Lucozade (qv), any disabled child with an external bladder may find that they can hit the ceiling by punching their bag. This feat, impossible for those with internal bladders, will afford the window-licker (qv) with a rare moment of kudos.